Subjectivity and symbolization.

Abstract

The aim of this paper has been to demonstrate that the emergence of subjectivity as a central concept in psychoanalysis is both consistent with and intertwined with the emergence of a new great generative idea (Langer, 1942), now in its nascent stage. Langer's (1942) thesis that symbolization and the power of symbols provide the basis for the fundamental assumptions of the new great generative idea was presented in condensed form. Langer's work was then integrated with that of contemporary psychoanalytic theoretical writers, which tends to support Langer's thesis. Freud's discoveries were revolutionary insofar as they resulted in the posing of new kinds of questions that have to do with symbols and their meanings. To that extent the birth of psychoanalysis itself appears as one manifestation of the emerging new generative idea. The issue of subjectivity was examined from the specific vantage point of recent conceptualizations of self and self-experience. Symbolization, it was shown, is a crucial factor in both self-experience and conceptualizations of self. Finally, it was suggested by the author that some of the existing baffling problems concerning subjectivity, the concept of self, and self-experience may disappear in the context of the new great generative idea, based on fundamental assumptions about the power of symbols.